His voice came from another direction, as if he were circling me. "Nell, why are you afraid of the dark?"
I spun around, my eyes blind, trying to see something… anything. "I'm not so afraid of the dark as afraid of who I'm trapped with. Stand still, will you?"
"You are afraid of the dark," he whispered behind me. "Your heart is beating so fast I can almost taste your fear."
I jumped and turned to face the direction the voice had come. "Stop doing that and let me have your lighter!"
"Why do you want my lighter? Do you intend to set me on fire?"
"That wasn't on my list, but I'll be happy to add it," I said grimly, reaching into the darkness for him. "I want a fire, OK? It's cold in here."
"If it's warmth you seek, I will be happy to oblige," he growled into my right ear. I shivered at the heat of his breath as it whispered along my skin.
"A fire would be better," I said, clearing my throat to try to ease the hoarseness. "I like fires."
"A fire would kill you." His voice came from in front of me now. I waved my hand in that direction, brushing against something warm and hard that melted away into the blackness. "There is no ventilation hole in this chamber. The smoke would asphyxiate you."
"So what?" I sobbed, the panic I'd been struggling to contain washing over me. I crumpled to the ground a pathetic blob of humanity, shaking with cowardice and fear as I panted, trying to ease the pressure that bore down from the weight of the stone above. "I'll be dead once you're done doing this cat-and-mouse thing with me anyway. Why not die where at least I can see my murderer? Are you breathing all the air? There's no air in here! I can't… there's not enough air to breathe!"
"Nell." Hands warm and strong pulled me to my feet. For a moment I thought of fighting him, fighting what I knew he was going to do, but the instinctual need to cling to another human being overwhelmed me. Adrian grunted as I threw myself on him, clutching him, wrapping my arms around him. He was warm and solid, and somehow with my face pressed into his neck, I could breathe easier. It was as if he alone kept the weight of the stone around us from crushing me into an insignificant little pulp. The panic that had washed over me began to ebb. "I'm sorry," he said. "I did not know you were claustrophobic. I would have found alternate shelter had I known."
"You have a heartbeat," I said against his neck, my lips having been pressed against his pulse point. Beneath my arms wrapped around him, his chest rose and fell in a slow, regular pattern. "You're breathing. I thought vampires were supposed to be the undead. You don't feel dead. You're not cold and clammy at all."
"We prefer the term Dark One," he answered, his voice starting deep in his chest. "It has less of the Count Dracula connotation to it."
"So you're not dead?" I asked, relaxing slightly as his hands came around me in a gentle embrace.
"No. I live as you do, but with a few differences."
"Like the fact that you're immortal, and you drink blood, and you burn up in the sunlight, and garlic repels you." I had half expected him to sink fangs in me, but instead he seemed content to allow me to cling to him, finding a shelter in his arms that I had never in my wildest dreams expected.
I felt him shrug, his hands skimming up my back in a manner that had me shivering—but not with cold. "I live until I am destroyed, yes. I need blood to survive, that is true. Sunlight is not especially healthy for me, although it will not burn me to ash as popular movies show."
"What about garlic?" I asked, perversely enjoying the discussion. Smooshed up against him as I was, I couldn't help but breathe in his scent, a masculine combination of man and something else, something woodsy and elemental, something that started a little thrum inside me that I didn't seem to be able to stop.
Nor was I sure I wanted to.
"Garlic doesn't bother me, although I admit to finding it a bit offensive when it's used too heavily in my food."
How sick was it that I was getting pleasure out of clinging to a man—no, not a man, a vampire—who thought nothing of betraying his own people?
What makes you believe I think nothing of it?
"Your food?" I gasped, trying to pretend his voice hadn't brushed my mind. "You mean people? That was a joke? You're talking about people with garlic breath?"
"Yes, it was a joke. If your panic has eased, I will get my lighter. I cannot light a fire, you understand, but if you will allow me to move over to that pile of wood, I will place my lighter there so you might have light as long as the fluid lasts."
I peeled myself off him with an effort, lured away from his warmth and solidness by the promise of light. He flicked his lighter a couple of times, cupping a hand around the flame to protect it as he walked over to a pile of discarded barrel bits. He cleared a small patch, setting the lighter down carefully, lowering the level of the flame. The light from it didn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, but it was better than nothing. I hurried toward it, drawn like a moth to the light that flickered and danced in the draft.
"Better?" he asked. I nodded, rubbing my arms against the chill of the room. Odd how I hadn't noticed how cold it was when I had been snuggled up to him. He kicked aside more wood, clearing a path to a wall a few feet away.
"Ryan," I said, watching as he sat down, his back against the wall.
"Adrian," he corrected, leaning back, his arms crossed, his eyes closed.
"Ryan is friendlier. Ryan all but oozes niceness. I like Ryan. A Ryan would never snack on someone's leg. Adrian sounds"—I made an expressive gesture with my hands—"cruel. Heartless. Savage."
"I am cruel, heartless, and savage. I am the Betrayer."
"Mmm. Ryan reeks of normalcy."
His eyes opened at that.
I made a face. "Maybe you're right. You're not exactly the Ryan type. Adrian it is."
I rubbed my arms again, glancing around for somewhere I could curl up and keep warm.
"No one has ever called me anything but Adrian the Betrayer." For a moment there was a look of surprised longing in his eyes; then it disappeared as he closed his eyes again.
"What are you doing?" I asked, shivering slightly. I hadn't seen any sign of them, but I couldn't help wondering if there were any rats trapped in the room with us. I bet if there were, none would bother Adrian. Weren't vampires supposed to be able to control the creatures of the night?
"I am trying to sleep. There are no rats."
"Stop reading my mind!" Annoyance at the way he dipped into my mind whenever he felt like it drove away the worry about rats and discomfort of the cold.
The corners of his lips quirked stiffly, as if he hadn't smiled in a long time. Even in partial shadow as he was, my inner squeal girl couldn't help but point out just how handsome he was. The faint glow of light picked up the red notes in his hair, kissing the hard planes of his face, the reddish whiskers softening an otherwise hard line of jaw. When his lips quirked upward at the corner, a hint of dimple showed on either cheek. His nose had a couple of small bumps down its length, indicating that he must have broken it once or twice. Eyelashes, thick and black, lay fanned on his cheeks, hiding those beautiful, haunted eyes.
He really was the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen.
The faint line of dimples on either cheek deepened.
Sexy as hell, too, but I expected he knew that.
One side of his mouth curled.
He probably didn't even have to go shopping for dinner. I bet the women were on him so thick, he had to shovel them off.
The other side of his mouth twitched. The dimples deepened.
He didn't do anything for me, though. Nothing at all. I was more sexually attracted to the burned root that lay on the floor than to him.
His eyes opened in surprise.
"Ha!" I told him, rubbing my arms. "That'll teach you to eavesdrop in people's private fanta… er… thoughts!"
"I assure you, it's not an ability I sought. In truth, the fact that we can read each other is more than a little disconcerting since it means…"
&nb
sp; "What?" I asked, shivering with the damp and cold of the room.
"Nothing."
He closed his eyes again and appeared to go to sleep.
I kicked his foot. "You have dimples."
One of his eyebrows raised, but he didn't even bother to open his eyes.
"That's got to be against a law of nature. Everyone knows it's physically impossible for vampires to have dimples. Men who have dimples are cute and adorable, like little fluffy bunnies. Vampires are dark, brooding, and tortured. You can't be dark, brooding, and tortured if you could burst out into dimples at any moment."
His eyebrows lowered, but his arms remained crossed over his chest.
I kicked his foot again. "Men with dimples sing Broadway show tunes. Upbeat Broadway show tunes!"
"I don't have dimples." He crossed one ankle over the other just as I was going to kick his boot again.
"Yes, you do. I've seen them. You just don't know you have because you can't see your reflection in a mirror."
You shouldn't believe everything you read.
"You can see yourself in a mirror? Oh. Well, the next time you're near one, you'll have to smile at yourself and see your dimples."
His eyes opened for a few seconds to glare a steel-blue glare at me before closing again. Do I look like the sort of man who goes about smiling at himself in mirrors?
"You look like the sort of man who eats small children for breakfast," I answered. He said nothing to that, just went to sleep sitting on a hard, cold floor in a hard, cold room that somehow didn't seem to be quite as oppressive as it had a few minutes before. Dimples or not, I had to give him credit for calming the major panic attack I had been brewing. I stood for a few minutes shifting from foot to foot, finally saying in a whining voice that had me flinching in embarrassment, "I'm cold."
The martyred look was back on his face, but he opened his arms without saying anything. I didn't wait to debate the pros and cons of curling up next to a mind-reading vampire, I just threw myself onto him, apologized briefly for inadvertently jamming my knee into his groin, wrapped my arms around him, and buried my face into his neck. He was warm and strong and he smelled good. I relaxed into his body, his arms closing around me with a solidness that left me feeling safe and protected.
Which was ridiculous, considering he had just kidnapped me and wanted me to destroy myself in order to save him from a curse.
"Nell?" His voice was low and deep in my ear, his breath hot on my temple as he spoke.
"Hmm?"
"I've never once had to shovel women off me."
I chuckled into his neck, too warm and comfortable to protest the fact that he had been reading my mind.
"But it pleases me that you think I'm sexy."
I pinched a bit of flesh on his back exposed between his black cotton sweater and the waistband of his pants. "Bad vampire."
As I was falling asleep, a thought shimmered in my mind in a way that made me wonder if I had imagined it, or heard an echo of his thoughts.
There can be nothing between us. There is no hope for me. I must die, and you must live.
* * *
Chapter Five
"Ow. Stupid rock. My next kidnapper is going to have a Porsche."
Adrian said nothing, but the hand nearest me tightened into a fist, as if he wanted to strangle something. I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew what. Or rather, who. That worry didn't stop me from continuing, however. For some reason I didn't care to examine fully, I had gone from being terrified of Adrian to comfortable. Oddly comfortable. As in very, very strangely comfortable. And all because he was nice to me when he could have been cruel.
The fact that he didn't eat me for dinner also helped improve my overall impression of the Betrayer.
I shivered and trudged down the winding road that led from Drahanska Castle to the nearby town of Blansko, where I fervently prayed Adrian had a car stashed. "My next kidnapper is going to know how to kidnap a girl in style. He won't drag me off to a dirty, rat-infested hole, starve me, then make me walk miles and miles and miles after the sun has gone down. He'll kidnap me using his sports car with comfortable heated leather seats, complete with picnic basket filled with goodies. A sexy red sports car."
There was no response from Adrian other than his jaw tightening.
"A convertible!"
"For the love of God, woman, what do you want from me?" he burst out, his eyes flashing an irritated midnight blue. "I asked you if you wanted me to carry you, but you said you'd rather die first."
"Yeah, but I didn't mean it literally! Death by blisters, what an ignominious way to go." I rubbed my arms to keep the circulation going, wincing as I stepped on yet another rock.
"You have absolutely no respect for me, do you?" he asked, shooting me an annoyed look. "You have no idea how powerful and dangerous I can be. I am feared and loathed by all of my people, hunted like an animal by those who would destroy me, but you aren't the least bit in awe of me, are you? You should be terrified of me, and all you do is complain."
"Well, I'm a bit in awe of those fangs," I said, trying to make him feel better, although I honestly didn't know why I cared if his feelings were hurt or not. "Aren't they in the way like that? You must have to mumble a lot when you're in public, so people won't see them. And don't your lips get snagged on them? I had braces when I was in my teens, and I tore my lips on them something terrible. I'd offer you some lip balm, but my purse was left behind when you abducted me. I hope the real Christian gives it back. All my money and my passport are in it."
"Dark Ones do not wear lip balm," he said in an outraged voice.
I shrugged and amused myself for a few minutes by trying to make the white puffs of breath that hung briefly in the air before me into a bat shape.
"No," Adrian said before I could ask the question. "I can't change into a bat."
I stopped in the middle of the road, a feeble moon casting light down upon us from between suitably dramatic wisps of cloud. "Stop. Reading. My. Mind!"
His fingers clamped around my wrist as he hauled my protesting feet forward. "I can't help it. You're projecting."
"Oh," I gasped, outraged. "I am not! I never project!"
"You are. You don't put up the slightest barrier to your thoughts. All I have to do is…" A warm presence touched my mind. I sucked in a deep breath of icy air at the feel of him merging with my thoughts. It was the most intimate touch I'd ever felt, far more intimate than just the joining of bodies.
Smug male satisfaction filled my mind.
"Stop it," I said, pushing him out of my mind. "It's not polite to wander around in someone's head without them knowing."
"You know," he grumbled. "You have to know. You also know you can read me just as easily as I can read you."
"Why would you think that?" I looked at the tall, dark figure next to me. "I've never been any good at guessing what people were thinking, let alone able to read minds."
"I've marked you," he said grimly. "It's the first step of Joining."
"Marked me? You haven't even touched me. I know you're the big bad wolf and all—"
"The Betrayer," he interrupted. "I am the Betrayer. I am hated and feared—"
"—by all your people, and hunted down like the dog you are, yadda yadda. Yeah, I know, you told me. I guess that's why I'm not afraid of you anymore, Adrian the Betrayer. You didn't hurt me when you could have."
"That's not the reason," he said shortly. I couldn't see his face because a cloud had drifted across the moon's face, but we were coming into town, which meant I should soon be able to see if his expression was as grim as his voice. "It's something much worse."
"Worse? What are you talking about?"
He refused to answer. Our conversation—sporadic at best—dried up into nothing as we started up a short hill into the town of Blansko.
"Nell," he said a little while later as we passed through a dark square. "You—"
"Oh, look, a train station! I bet you could hire a car there or some
thing. And they probably have food, too. I'm starving. Come on."
"Nell." He grabbed my arm in his steel-fingered shackle grip and pulled me up so his mouth was next to my ear. To any of the few people driving through the square, we probably looked like lovers who couldn't wait to get home. "You will remember that you are my prisoner. You will keep uppermost in your mind at all times the fact that I'm a dangerous creature of darkness. I am a killer, a betrayer, a man without a soul who will not hesitate to destroy anyone who stands in his way."
I looked up at his face, visible in the bluish-white glow of a lamppost. A little ripple of fear skimmed down my back at the expression in his eyes. They were ice blue, and utterly hopeless. Without thinking of the folly of what I was doing, I turned so I faced him fully, gently touching the side of his face. Darkness, deep and all-consuming and endless, raged within him, a gaping hole inside him where his soul should have been. I wanted to fill the emptiness, to change the darkness to hope, and love, and happiness. I knew instinctively that I could lift the curse that bound him so tightly, easing the torment that had him within its twisted grip, but to do so would mean I had to open up that part of my mind that I had all but destroyed ten years ago.
The part of my mind that had killed an innocent woman.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice a thin ribbon of sound on the cold night air as I lowered my hand. "I can't. I can't ever do that again."
His eyes went dark as I felt the soft brush of him against my mind. I turned away, as if that would keep him from seeing the truth about me. I had not thought for one moment that he hadn't noticed the slackness in the left side of my face, or the weakness in my left hand and leg, but he had not asked about it, and I hadn't offered an explanation.
"What do you hide from me?"
I stilled, clutching my guilt to myself. He turned me so I was facing him. Suspicion filled his face as he narrowed his eyes. "I cannot read what you hide. What secret do you have that fills you with so much horror?"
Sex, Lies, and Vampires Page 5
